


They Said It Changes When The Sun Goes Down

by poetroe



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Canon-Typical Violence, Deckerstar - Freeform, Drinking, F/M, Late Night Conversations, Samantha from the front desk, bodega
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 00:12:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14964926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetroe/pseuds/poetroe
Summary: The liquor is held in a tucked away corner of the store, separated from the other aisles in what looks like it used to be a detached room, once. The shelves are a dark wood instead of the stark white elsewhere in the store, and the lights seem dimmed here. Chloe is eyeing the last bottle of her favorite bourbon when she hears someone else step into the cramped space.“Is that the last one?”Deckerstar AU where they keep meeting in a 24/7 bodega at 4am





	1. 4:34 AM

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is somewhat inspired by s03e26, but mostly by the fact that THANK GOD Lucifer is renewed for a fourth season!!! I've planned four chapters for this and I hope to have the second one ready in a week or so. Title taken from the Arctic Monkeys song. I hope you all like this chapter and what's to come!

4:34 AM

The harsh fluorescent lights of the bodega make Chloe squint a little. It’s an entire different world from the quiet darkness of the street corner outside, where she’d parked her car. A quick glance at her watch confirms what Chloe had already felt slowly seeping into her limbs, making her movements sluggish. It’s half past 4 in the morning, and she’s exhausted.

The case is closed, though, which is what matters. It had been a particularly drawn out one, as homicides involving a serial killer tended to turn into. They had been quick enough in establishing the killer’s MO, but slow enough in determining his selection of the victims to prevent two more deaths. Solving murders is never easy, but cases like these always leave Chloe feeling particularly helpless.

Her eyes scan the shelves as she moves through the small aisles. What she is really here for is a drink. Chloe can’t imagine what her mother would say if she saw her like this; prioritizing her own comfort over going home to her daughter. She shakes her head swiftly as if to get rid of the thought, because there’s nothing she’s really doing wrong. Trixie is asleep anyway, and Chloe needs the distraction.

The liquor is held in a tucked away corner of the store, separated from the other aisles in what looks like it used to be a detached room, once. The shelves are a dark wood instead of the stark white elsewhere in the store, and the lights seem dimmed here. Chloe is eyeing the last bottle of her favorite bourbon when she hears someone else step into the cramped space. She picks up the bottle and turns around, eager to leave the other person to it. A sense of unease settles over her again, because she’s a cop, and she knows that not a lot of good things happen after midnight in this city. The stranger, however, speaks up before she can leave.

“Is that the last one?” he says, and Chloe stops at hearing a British accent. The detective part of her turns back on immediately at hearing something so out of the ordinary. “Shame.”

“Yeah,” Chloe says as she turns back around. “It’s my favorite.” She says it with a slight grimace, as if to apologize for getting here before him. The man seems not bothered at all, though, and simply gives her a charming smile.

“A woman of good taste, I see. Lovely.” Chloe smiles back. Her brain is currently too sleep deprived to come up with a decent response to that. She makes another move towards the front of the store when the man stops her again, this time with a light touch to her elbow. “I hope this isn’t too forward of me,” he says, “but would you be interested in sharing that?” Chloe hesitates before answering, shifting her gaze between his warm brown eyes and the similarly warm brown bottle in her hand. She has the day off tomorrow, and apart from bringing to and picking up Trixie from school, she could spend the entirety of it in bed. Chloe shrugs.

“Sure,” she says. “I’ll pay, as long as you find us a place to drink this.” Why she is agreeing to drinking with a stranger, Chloe doesn’t know. She’s usually not this brash, never one to act without meticulous planning and consideration, but then again she doesn’t usually have days like this one, filled to the brim with stress, fear and regret. Besides, the way this guy is smiling at her is entirely disarming and unthreatening.

“Well, then perhaps introductions are in order,” he says. “My name is Lucifer Morningstar,” If Chloe had been somewhat well-rested, she might’ve found the name strange; now, she accepts it for what it is and just nods.

“Chloe Decker,” she answers as she sticks out her hand. He takes it, looking very amused with something that Chloe is honestly not even going to think about. “Come on,” she says as she releases his hand and leaves the room, returning to the harsh lights that shine over the rest of the bodega.

Fifteen minutes later sees them in the booth of an empty nightclub, soft RnB music playing in the background. Apparently, Chloe’s newest acquaintance is the owner of this club, which is called ‘Lux’ and is situated a walking distance from her go-to corner store. Chloe is sipping her well-earned bourbon, while Lucifer is telling some tall tale involving someone named Paris.

“As you can imagine,” he’s saying, while wearing a playful grin, “we avoided the jacuzzi for the remainder of our trip.” It looks like he’s noticed her absentmindedness, because he doesn’t launch into another story like he’d done before. “So, Chloe,” he starts instead, “what’s on your mind?” Chloe sighs.

“It’s kind of a long story,” she says.

“That’s okay,” Lucifer answers. “I’m here all night. Or morning, rather.” He chuckles shortly, seeing as it’s nearing 5, and Chloe feels herself relaxing in response. Lucifer’s calm and charming demeanor is making it so easy for her to let her guard down.

“Okay then,” Chloe says. She takes a moment before continuing. “I work as a homicide detective.” Lucifer’s eyes widen and he leans forward. “Today…” Chloe sighs. “The last three days, actually, I’ve spent chasing a serial killer. I’ll spare you all of the grisly details, but it’s—it was horrible. Anyway, we finally caught up with him tonight, but honestly I can’t help but feel like we should have been able to do it sooner. People might still have been alive if we had just found some of the clues earlier, if we acted faster…” She trailed off. This part of her job is something Chloe has had to accept countless times in the past, but it never got any easier. Not knowing what else to say, she finishes her drink.

“You’ve stopped him, though, detective,” Lucifer says as he grabs the bottle, moving to refill Chloe’s glass before she stops him. “That is certainly worth another drink.”

“Oh! No, I still have to drive home,” she explains. Lucifer nods and hands her the bottle, instead.

“I hope you know that the four million people in this city will sleep safer tonight, thanks to you,” he continues softly. It brings a half-smile to Chloe’s face.

“I know. Thanks, Lucifer.”

Chloe hasn’t slept more than six hours these past three days and her brain is not really working the way it’s supposed to anymore, but when she stands up from the booth to leave, the realization hits her that she might not see this man again. And after the hour they’ve spent together, in which Chloe had been more open with him than she’d been with anyone this past year, she really can’t help the way she leans over Lucifer and pulls him into a short hug.

“Bye,” Chloe says as she lets him go again, bourbon bottle in hand and a melancholy smile on her face.

“Goodbye,” Lucifer replies.


	2. 2:16 AM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said I would upload this in a week but I had so much fun writing that I already finished it, lmao. Enjoy and I'm sure the next chapter won't be long, either!

2:16 AM

Two weeks later sees Chloe back at the bodega. The occasion is the girls’ night at her place being all out of alcohol, right in the middle of their High School Musical marathon. Chloe, being the most sober one, had been sent to get some more tequila, rum and soda from the bodega, which was about a fifteen minute walk from her apartment.

She’s currently debating whether to get normal coke or coke zero (Samantha, from the front desk of the precinct, had been talking a lot about her new diet lately), two bottles of liquor already clenched under her arm, when she hears a familiar voice disturb the soft, nondescript music of the store.

“My dear Eduardo, how are you today?” It’s Lucifer. Chloe, for a reason that is beyond her, suddenly feels a flash of nervousness at hearing his voice. She hadn’t thought she’d encounter him again, and that if she did, it would be at Lux. A place where she could expect hearing that soft baritone again.

Chloe might be a naturally curious person, she usually did not condone eavesdropping. It might be the alcohol, buzzing through her veins from the tips of her fingers all the way to her toes, keeping her frozen in place. It might also be this place. The constant thrumming of the AC has a hypnotizing effect and there is seemingly nothing Chloe can do except shifting her gaze over the store’s assortment of soda’s, over and over again.

Lucifer is talking about some business he and Eduardo, the man behind the cash register, have done and the absence of him going into detail is making the whole thing sound a bit shady. Chloe shifts her weight from one leg to the other.

“I understand you would like to make another deal, would you not, Eduardo?” Lucifer says. Chloe hears nothing, so she assumes Eduardo nods at that, because Lucifer continues. “As I’m sure you will remember from our last transaction, I do require something in return. Let’s call it an I-owe-you for now.” Chloe can hear some mumbling from Eduardo in return, but can’t quite make our the words. She’s focusing so hard on trying to hear what is being said that Chloe doesn’t hear another presence join her in the narrow aisle.

“Who are you?” Chloe jumps, turns around and sees a woman with a grim expression on her face, dressed head to toe in black, staring her down.

“Who are you?” is her witty rebuttal. The woman bares her teeth and moves forward threateningly, so Chloe takes a step backwards, already crouching slightly in case she might have to place all the bottles she’s holding on the dirty tiles.

“I’m—” the woman starts but then Lucifer is there, stepping out from behind Chloe and in between the two of them, a physical buffer.

“Chloe! Detective!” Lucifer says enthusiastically as he turns to her. “So we meet again!” Then he notices the rum and tequila under her arm. “Drinking on the job, are we? I’ve certainly been there.” He honest-to-God winks at her and Chloe rolls her eyes.

“I’m off duty. It’s Girls’ Night,” she says, unable to keep a smile off her face, because like he had been doing last time Lucifer is graciously smiling at her.

“What a coincidence,” he says then, before putting an arm around the woman who was still staring daggers at her. “It is for us, too! Allow me to introduce the lovely _Mazikeen_.” The way he says the woman’s name has something twisting into a knot in Chloe’s stomach, and she suddenly doesn’t feel so charmed by Lucifer’s smile anymore.

“Nice to meet you,” she says stiffly, extending her hand. Mazikeen just looks at it for a second, before mumbling a ‘whatever’ and walking away, leaving Chloe and Lucifer alone in the aisle. “She’s intense,” Chloe mutters and Lucifer nods in agreement. Despite this strange interaction, Chloe can’t help but think back to what she overheard before Mazikeen interrupted. Being a detective is ingrained in her personality at this point, and being buzzed means a complete absence of the filter she usually has; both are things that can explain why Chloe says what she says next. “So what was that deal you were talking about, with Eduardo?”

“As you know, I own Lux,” Lucifer starts. “Before I acquired that fantastic piece of real estate, however, I made my bread by helping people. Still do so, occasionally, as with dear Eduardo.” With that he makes a gesture in the direction where the cash register is supposed to be.

“Right,” Chloe answers, still somewhat disbelieving.

“For example,” Lucifer continues with a smirk, “his end of our last deal included twenty percent off whatever I buy here. Isn’t that nice?”

“You couldn’t have mentioned that when I paid for the bourbon last time?”

“Well, you offered, detective.” Lucifer is grinning at her and Chloe is about to tell him he can pay for their drinks _next time_ , when she hears another familiar voice in the store.

“You’ll have to show me some time.” The voice is sultry and slightly slurred, but unmistakably belongs to Samantha.

“Uh, excuse me,” Chloe says, finally grabbing a coke zero and hauling it with the rest of the bottles to the cash register. Sure enough, there is Samantha; looking dangerously unsteady on her feet, if not for a hand on her waist, holding her steady. The sound of Chloe dumping her purchases on the counter makes her turn away from—Mazikeen. Of course.

“Hey, Chloe!” Samantha says loudly, “we were wondering what kept you so long. I have to say I do understand now—” She’s turning back towards Mazikeen with a predatory smile as she trails off, Chloe seemingly already forgotten.

“Yeah, uh, I ran into a friend,” Chloe says. “I just have to pay, then we can go—”

“ _Friend_?” Samantha and Mazikeen interrupt her simultaneously, Samantha sounding positively thrilled whereas Mazikeen all but spits out the word.

“Yes, _friend_. Just a friend.” Chloe rolls her eyes and starts poking around in her wallet for some cash. Lucifer comes back around just as she hands it over to Eduardo.

“Detective, I could have paid for that,” he says as Chloe grabs the thin plastic bags and starts pulling Samantha away from Mazikeen on her way to the door.

“Next time!” she yells from over her shoulder.


	3. 4:02 AM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me procrastinating = you guys getting another chapter. Enjoy !!

4:02 AM

Chloe doesn’t know what brings her here, in the dead of night, again. She’s started coming by the bodega every time she leaves the precinct after midnight, hanging around the narrow aisles for as long as she can without it being awkward, usually getting something little like a pack of Oreos or a lollypop for Trixie. There has to be a reason why she keeps being drawn to the corner store.

Yeah, who is she kidding, there is definitely a reason. Even though Chloe doesn’t want to admit it, least of all to herself, she knows that she keeps coming around there in order to run in Lucifer again. ‘Next time’, she had yelled the last time. That had been a month ago.

A glance at her watch tells Chloe it’s just after four as she steps into the liquor corner of the bodega. Her eyes slide over the labels, carefully observing the nationality and percentage of the alcohol in what had become a sort of pattern for Chloe. Strolling through the aisles, looking at the products, hanging around the liquor, rinse and repeat.

“A dark room filled with alcohol? My, detective—we’ve _got_ to stop meeting like this.” Chloe smiles at the familiar voice and turns around.

“I agree,” Chloe quips. “You should ask for my number.” Lucifer’s smile widens into a wicked grin and he gets his phone out of the breast pocket of his blazer with a flourish.

“If you would be so kind,” he all but purrs as he hands over his phone. Chloe chuckles as she puts in her number and saves it under ‘Chloe from the bodega’. Lucifer is looking unbelievably smug as she hands it back. “So, Chloe from the bodega, what are you drinking this evening?” he says with a smirk, and Chloe realizes that in her mission to see Lucifer again, her motive for visiting the corner store had essentially disappeared.

“Uh… I don’t know,” she says, feeling a blush creeping up from her neck, onto her cheeks. “Well, you’re the nightclub owner. What do you recommend?” Lucifer gives the shelves in the dimly lit room a once-over.

“Nothing in this room, assuredly.” He seems to consider something before he continues. “A wonderful shipment of champagne just arrived at Lux, however. If you’re interested in that.” The normally so self-assured air that Lucifer exuded seems to evaporate as soon as the words leave his mouth. He’s shuffling around a bit and his hands are buried deep in his pockets, as if to keep them from fidgeting. Chloe can’t help but to find it slightly adorable.

“Champagne on a weeknight? Why not,” she says with a smile. Lucifer returns it easily. Just as they are about to leave the store’s liquor cabinet, however, gunshots echo through the store. Chloe hears what sounds to be two men, yelling at Eduardo to put the money from the cash register in a bag. She gets her gun from its holster.

“Stay here,” she whispers to Lucifer, who seems to be frozen in place. “And for the love of _God_ , get down.” That seems to get him moving, although not in the way Chloe had intended. Instead of crouching down and letting the person who _actually works with the police_ deal with this, he pulls shortly on his jacket sleeves to straightens them and with full confidence, starts walking towards the gunmen. “ _Lucifer_!” Chloe hisses, but to no avail.

“Not to worry, detective,” Lucifer tells her. “I think I know these gentlemen.”

“You _think_?!” Chloe says, but he’s already gone. Of course, she can’t help but follow.

Lucifer’s voice carries through the store as he starts speaking to the two gunmen (a glance from where Chloe is crouched behind the shelves having confirmed her suspicions). Like the last time Chloe was eavesdropping, the situation being not entirely dissimilar to this one, Lucifer is talking business. He’s going on about deals and desires and promises—until one of the two gunmen has had enough. Chloe feels the blood in her veins turn to ice at the dry click. Every muscle in her body wants to stand up, walk out from her hiding place with her gun drawn, but her years of training keep her where she is as bullets start raining down.

It doesn’t go on long. A minute, maybe less, and then Chloe hears the gunmen curse and run away. Immediately, she comes out of the aisle she’s been hiding in with her gun drawn. She shoots twice and manages to hit one of them in his calf. He goes down screaming and instantly Chloe is on him, ripping the semiautomatic out of his hands and pulling his arms back.

“LAPD,” she shouts, “you’re under arrest.” Her ears are still ringing from the gunshots from before and Chloe’s heart is in her throat, because the chase hasn’t allowed her a moment to make sure Lucifer is okay. She’s having a really bad feeling about this. Quickly and methodically, Chloe secures handcuffs around the gunman’s wrists, before sprinting back inside, where Lucifer is on the ground, flat on his back. “Lucifer,” she hisses while her hands roam his torso, looking for wounds, bullet holes and blood. Her heart is beating like crazy, the confusion from the fact that she doesn’t find any of that only contributing to its frantic pace. Then Lucifer draws breath and opens his eyes.

“Detective, hello,” he says, as if he’s just waking up from a nap and Chloe could _hit_ him for it. She’s so relieved. “Turns out that I did know them.”

“You don’t say,” Chloe mutters, after releasing a deep breath. “How are you even alive? What on earth happened?”

“It’s rather a long story, I’m afraid,” Lucifer says as he sits up. “You see, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth—”

“Okay,” Chloe sighs, rolling her eyes and standing back up. “I don’t have time for this. Eduardo, are you alright?” From behind the counter, a shaking Eduardo comes into sight. He nods once and Chloe gives him what she hopes to be a comforting smile. She steps outside again, where the gunman is still moaning on the ground, and gets out her phone.

Two ambulances and a patrol car later, Lucifer and Chloe are the only ones left on the scene. The bodega is an absolute mess, bullets having torn through most of the products within range. Eduardo and the gunman have both been taken to the hospital, the former for a check-up and the latter to have the bullet from Chloe’s service pistol removed from his leg. How Lucifer hadn’t been taken with them is honestly beyond Chloe.

“Seriously,” she says. They’re both outside, leaning against the window of the corner store. Lucifer is smoking a cigarette. “How are you not hit? Those bullets were flying around like a hailstorm.” Lucifer shrugs.

“What can I say?” he says, while taking a drag. “There is more to me than you know.”

“What, like imperviousness to bullets?” Chloe says. This man is completely ridiculous.

“Exactly,” Lucifer replies with a grin.


End file.
